Historically, in analog television broadcasting, the locations where commercials could be inserted was marked using in-band signaling such as dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones. DTMF tones can be used to indicate the start and stop times of commercials. These tones may be inserted by the broadcast or cable network and may be sent to local networks as part of a network feed. Subsequently, local television stations may insert or replace part of the network feed based on the DTMF tones with local content or commercials.
In digital television broadcasting, instead of using DTMF tones, in-band signaling (e.g., the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) 35 standard) is often used to signal the insertion of a commercial or other content. SCTE 35 metadata messages have long been used in the cable and broadcast industry to signal the start of local advertising breaks. The SCTE 35 Standard has evolved over the years through multiple revisions to also enable signaling and metadata for dynamic ad insertion, content replacement, blackout, start over, look back, DVR and live-to-VOD applications.
Metadata may include, for example, broadcaster-specific advertisements, location-specific advertisements, graphical overlays, tickers, timing of events within the video (e.g., a goal scored in a sports match), asset identification (e.g., Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), Ad-ID) and/or the like. However, the SCTE 35 standard is ambiguous in many places with many sections completely optional and as a result there are multiple ways for the standard to be interpreted. This has resulted in a situation where many content providers that currently use SCTE 35 have different metadata configurations (still technically compliant with the SCTE 35 standard), even though the same temporal point or type of content is being signaled. For example, one content provider may signal the start of an advertising break using a particular type identifier, whereas another may choose to use a different type identifier where both type identifiers are perfectly valid according to SCTE 35. This causes confusion for distributors, especially those that are receiving content from multiple different content providers (e.g., multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”)).
Synchronization of this metadata with the video timeline is quite often lost as the audiovisual content is transmitted, processed and/or stored and as such the usefulness of the metadata degrades significantly. This causes events to be triggered at the wrong point in the content resulting in a poor on-screen experience for viewers. For example, if the SCTE 35 message that is signaling the start of a local advertising break at an MVPD arrives too early, the advertising insertion equipment will cut off the end of the previous program segment early. Similarly, if the SCTE 35 message arrives too late, there will be “peek through” of the programming that should have been replaced by a local commercial. These problems are hindering the ability for content providers and MVPDs alike to monetize content, especially as it relates to distribution of linear/live television via the internet.
Further, conversion between different viewing formats and/or transmission over different distribution channels may result in SCTE signaling and/or DTMF tones associated with the insertion of commercials and other visual graphics or audio components being lost. Metadata may be lost during the processing of audiovisual content, converting the audiovisual content from analog to digital (or vice versa), video encoding, video decoding, or changing the resolution of the video. In another example, SCTE signaling and/or metadata may be lost changing the frame rating to conform to a particular standard (e.g., high definition, ultra-high definition) or a particular regional requirement (e.g., PAL, NTSC, or the like).